While many may think the Fast and Furious investigation has run its course and that the Obama administration has successfully run out the clock, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa appears to be moving froward; he's filing a lawsuit against Holder today.
CBS News has learned that the House Oversight Committee expects to file a civil contempt suit against Attorney General Eric Holder Monday. The lawsuit is to try to force Holder to release documents from the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation.
The Republican-led House of Representative voted to hold Holder in contempt on June 28 for failing to turn over thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents. The Justice Department has said it is withholding documents under White House executive privilege.
Seventeen Democrats voted with 238 Republicans in the 255-67 vote for contempt. Democratic leaders called the contempt vote a "political witch hunt."
In a past subpoena dispute between Congress and the executive branch, a federal judge ordered the executive branch to turn over the disputed documents. However, before the executive branch could pursue an appeal, the two sides reached a compromise and certain documents were turned over.
If nothing comes of the Fast and Furious investigation, it won't be because Issa and a select few bulldogs on the Committee threw in the towel. They've already gotten much further than many expected. The Attorney General was held in criminal contempt of Congress as well as civil contempt.
As an example of the limited options Issa has, prosecuting Holder for criminal contempt is a non-starter because Holder's subordinate is responsible for doing so.
Virtually the only other option is for Speaker John Boehner to have Holder arrested.
There seems to be a minor tete-a-tete going on between Newt Gingrich and Christian Whiton, a man who worked on the former House Speaker's presidential campaign; Whiton also worked at the State Department from 2003 - 2009. In an interview yesterday, Whiton asserted that Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan was 'unfortunate' due to Ryan's lack of foreign policy experience.
Note how Whiton defers to Dick Cheney's standard for selecting a Vice President. While it's true that Cheney has eight years of experience as Vice President under his belt, he has quite a few blemishes when it comes to his dealing with the real Islamic threat after 9/11, as was identified by William Murray in the days after 9/11.
Consider a Washington Post article dated February 22, 2003. It had been learned that Sami Al-Arian, who would later be convicted of charges relating to financing terrorism, was one of 160 members of a delegation from the American Muslim Council (AMC) who attended an event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House on June 22, 2001.
None other than Karl Rove - the man who earned the moniker known as 'Bush's Brain' - was on hand to convey Bush's "faith-based" agenda. AMC, to include Abdurahman Alamoudi, a man who worked at the State Department under Clinton and who was convicted in 2004 of charges related to financing terrorism, was also in attendance. Keep in mind that Rove spoke at this event, attended by Alamoudi nearly one year after the AMC member stood in front of the White House and pledged support for Hamas and Hezbollah:
Cheney was scheduled to speak to the AMC at that June 22, 2001 meeting. The Washington Post article explains what happened:
The meeting was controversial within the White House even before it took place. The group that included Al-Arian was scheduled to be briefed by Vice President Cheney, but Cheney canceled. That morning, the Jerusalem Post had run a front-page article headlined, "Cheney to host pro-terrorist Muslim group."
Several pro-Israel and conservative activists had warned administration officials not to meet with the American Muslim Council contingent because the group had courted controversy for years, knowledgeable sources said.
The inference is that Cheney canceled because of the Jerusalem Post article but let's assume the two incidents were mutually exclusive. Why was Cheney scheduled to speak to the group at all??
To be fair to Whiton, he wasn't working at the State Department at the time of this fiasco involving Rove and Cheney.
This leads us to Gingrich's appearance on Face the Nation today. Note that his argument is in support of the Romney/Ryan ticket and that "it is an advantage that they're not part of the current mess". Based on the decision-making of Cheney's handlers in the anecdotal example from June of 2001 alone, Newt has a strong point.
When talk turns to the subject of the State Department in general, Gingrich advocates for 'distrust' of it.
Is that a reference to Huma Abedin and her potentially ill-gotten security clearance?
For the record, I reached out to Whiton to get his take on the Huma Abedin controversy; my inbox still contains no emails from him.
